Re: [HOE] Dinero,role-playing edges/hinderances, and eating

[Darrin Bright <darrin@neobright.net>]

Dusarat@aol.com wrote:

>     I hope that makes my point on why the dinero edge, or any number of
> factors should be brought up, in game, on screen at least once or so.

Not really.

Look, at certain times, it will become advantageous for certain things
to occurr "offscreen" not in the sense of outside when the players
regularly meet at the GMs house or wherever it is they play, but during
lulls in the action. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the GM
deciding that certain things occurred during the game that were not
important enough to involve all the players.

Some examples... in AD&D, did you roleplay every single spell component
the mages ever bought? Are you telling me you never told the GM, "Hey, I
want to buy some torches," and he said, "Sure, that's fine, you bought
them while the rest of the party was getting rooms at the inn." Some
people insist that every little detail be roleplayed or rolled for, but
sometimes its easier to move the game along if you assume certain things
happen "offscreen". For simple things where it's not particularly
important to have every player present, it can be a very effective way
to keep the action moving without boring the rest of the players.

Another example would be decking in Cyberpunk. Many, many GMs and
players get very frustrated when they have to sit for hours on end while
the GM runs a decker through his little infiltration thing.
Unfortunately, this isn't something that is easily handled by taking it
"offscreen", but unless the other players can actually see whats going
on inside the deck, it's effectively "offscreen" to them because they
can't see what's going on and can't respond, other than to maybe unplug
the decker.

And to get back to Deadlands/HOE... okay, so a player has the Dinero
edge... maybe he knows where a hidden stash of .45 ammo is, or he knows
where a semi-trailer full of twinkies is burried. He tells the GM, "Hey,
I want to use my dinero and pick up some extra supplies." The GM tells
him to wait until the end of the session... when all the bad guys are
dead, the whole party will be taking a week off anyway so the junker can
repair his hover-hottub. When the players meet for the next session, the
GM deals with anything that happens during this week of "downtime", the
junker makes his rolls, the player makes his Dinero roll, etc., and
after all this stuff has been taken care of, the action continues. But
I'd be rather pissed if the GM suddenly decided at that point to run one
player through an entire solo adventure just so he can get some ammo out
of his stash, and none of the other players are involved. All the GM
needs to say is, "So-and-so disappears for a few days, when he comes
back all his ammo belts are full. He mumbles something about getting
lucky at cards, but otherwise won't say where the ammo came from." And
that's all the other PCs really need to know. If another player decides,
hey, he may have a secret stash, next time he disappears I'm going to
follow him, then that's fine, the GM can go into a lot more detail and
flesh it out as a mini-adventure, but he doesn't have to do that EVERY
time someone wants to use Dinero. Make the roll, announce so-and-so was
gone for a day or two, and get on with the action.